It's a Woman's World
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: Time travel wasn't all it was cracked to be, nor was the Iris of the past. True, it was blissfully free of Gimle and the like, but...well, suffice to say, there's some things that never change. And as Lucina discovered, the dismissiveness of bandits towards "helpless women" was one of them.


_A/N_

_I'll lay this out from the start. Yes, this is based on _Awakening_. Yes, many of the plot specifics are still hazy. Yes, I've probably butchered Lucina's character and the evidence for this is probably in her supports. Still, at this point in time, I'm willing to take some liberties, one of them being a joke I remember reading that she was disguised as Marth so that more people would buy the game thinking they could play with him again. Fair enough, but my own joke would be that since Marth looked like a girl from the start (don't argue, agree), she'd hardly need the mask at all. ;)_

* * *

**It's a Woman's World**

This was the worst plan ever. Of all time.

Never mind the whole time travel thing. Never mind the end of the world, the apocalypse, ragnarok, or any other term that people liked to use to describe the end of all things. No. This plan was stupid. This plan was desperate. And in Lucina's mind, even cowardly.

_Suppose my father survives, _the princess wondered, taking stock of her surroundings. _Suppose the timelines merge. Will he be grateful? Or ashamed that I ran from my own timeline? That I chose to save one world at the expense of the other?_

Lucina didn't understand how time travel really worked, and Naga had been mute on the subject. She was here to change history. To prevent Gimle from possessing his vessel, striking down her father and dooming the world as was the purview of evil fire-spitting dragons of death. Whether she was setting up a paradox, creating a new timeline, or saving the existing one with the power of magic or something, she didn't know. But she was here. And adjusting her mask, all the daughter of Krom was left to do was wonder exactly where _here _was.

_Iris, presumably, _she reflected._ Or at least the continent. But what about the country?_

"Ello then, what we got here?"

…_Perezia, I guess._

It was a generalization, but she'd never heard of bandits in her homeland before, and she was willing to give Naga the benefit of the doubt that she'd at least arrive in the right hemisphere. But either way, she had to deal with the here and now, namely two bandits approaching her. "You lost love?" one sneered. "It's a bit late out, ain't it?"

Lucina knew they were definitely bandits by now. Even if she didn't stop to consider the fact that they weren't wearing shirts and were carrying axes (most bandits seemed to do that for some reason), their speech, movement and smell was enough to alert her of their intentions.

"What's the mask for, eh?" one of the two asked. "Don't you want to show your pretty face?"

Lucina remained silent. The mask. The bloody mask. She doubted whether the bandits actually cared what they looked like, but…

_But nothing. I need to work on my act._

"Love…" Lucina declared, "Is an inappropriate term."

"Eh?"

"My name is Marth. Prince of Akaneia."

"…say what now?"

_This isn't working, _Lucina told herself. _This _really _isn't working…_

Naga had told her to wear the mask. To hide her mark and her identity. Whether she could aid her parents and preserve said identity, she didn't know. Hopefully she could make changes to this timeline and return to the future with her parents none the wiser. But if she _had _to have an identity, it had been suggested she take the mantle of Marth. Her distant ancestor. Similar features, similar build, even a similar…no, _same _sword.

"Who's Marth?" one of the bandits asked suddenly.

And clearly this was an excellent plan. _Clearly _the whole identity assumption was a necessary cover story. _Clearly _humanity deserved to be saved due to its respect for history.

"You know, Marth," the other bandit murmured. "Royal prat. Enemy of Gimle."

"Oh yeah…I've read about him."

"Him?" the other bandit asked. "You prat, Marth was a girl."

"No way. He was a prince. A king."

"You ever seen a picture? That was a girl if I ever saw one."

It occurred to Lucina she could just slip away. Head across the border. Get down to the hero business. But by all that was holy, she was royalty. Next in line for the throne of Iris. The blood of Marth and Anri ran in her veins, and she wasn't going to have these scum insult her-…

"Come on! If Marth was a girl, Doluna would have never been defeated! No girl could do that!"

"Iris has got a female ruler now. Why should it have been any different?"

"What's your point? Women can't rule. They can't fight either. Only difference is that they're slightly less incompetent in the first area."

Lucina grit her teeth. And not just because the bandits were ignoring her.

"Well, Iris is completely incompetent at everything they do." The bandit gestured to Lucina. "I mean, if this is Marth, he, or she, is dead anyway."

"You're just ignoring the argument you-…"

Lucina charged.

It wasn't something Naga would have been happy with. She was meant to be subtle. To only make changes to the timeline as her mission allowed. She should have gone with her Marth impersonation and simply headed off to the land where people showed _him _with the respect _he _deserved…which might have been hard, because if they _did _do that, they'd be able to see she was female and therefore not Marth, but-…

"Heads up! Bitch's on a rampage!"

"That's _bastard_. It's Marth. It's a guy."

Lucina parried one bandit's axe and kicked the other in his gut. Screw the timeline. Screw these two. Obviously they had nothing to contribute to the future so there was no reason to spare them. Or at least there wasn't until both were lying on the ground, their axes as far away from their bodies as their pride. Right now, the only thing close to them was Falchion.

"Yield?" Lucina asked.

They nodded. Perhaps they weren't as stupid as she first thought. Perhaps-…

"See? It's Marth. A guy. No girl could do this and-…"

Lucina kicked him.

"You bastard!"

"Bitch, actually," she murmured. She took her mask off.

Both bandits stared at her.

"I'll lay this out for you," Lucina said. "Marth was male. I don't care what he looked like, I don't care how many people may pair him with red haired youths in fictionalized fighting tournaments, he was male. End of story."

The bandits stared at her. Combination of the whole male thing and/or third person she supposed. Either way, they stared even more as she took her mask off.

"But I'm not Marth," she declared. "I'm a girl. Female. The one who's currently putting a sword to both of you _men _on the ground."

The bandits kept staring.

"So here's what's going to happen," Lucina continued. "I'm going to put my mask back on. I'm going to go back to being Marth. You're going to tell everyone you meet that Marth beat you."

"And why should we do that?" one of the bandits asked.

"Because the only alternative is to tell the world that you were beaten by a girl. Surely the _lesser _of two evils, wouldn't you agree?"

Nodding in shocked silence, clearly the bandits agreed.

"I thought so."


End file.
